Measles has exploded in Europe. Clinicians say it's only a matter of time before outbreaks hit Canada; Is misunderstanding of mental illness clouding MAID expansion? Debate over access to gender-affirming care plays out in Alberta

 

View in browser Saturday, February 03, 2024 Good morning! Here's our round-up of weekly health and medical science news. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here. This week Measles has exploded in Europe. Clinicians say it's only a matter of time before outbreaks hit Canada Is misunderstanding of mental illness clouding MAID expansion? Debate over access to gender-affirming care plays out in Alberta A Yemeni child receives treatment for measles in the Huthi-rebel-held Yemeni capital Sanaa, on March 21, 2021. (AFP/Getty) Measles has exploded in Europe. Clinicians say it's only a matter of time before outbreaks hit Canada   Global travel, slumping vaccination rates has led to post-pandemic surge of infections Lauren Pelley and Amina Zafar   After an explosion of measles cases in Europe, medical experts say it's just a "question of time" before outbreaks happen in Canada, thanks to high rates of global travel and low rates of vaccinations. There were 42,200 measles cases across more than 40 European countries last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced this week — a more than 40-fold increase from 2022, which saw fewer than 1,000 cases. In December, the organization said there had been more than 20,000 hospitalizations and at least five deaths in the European region. Globally, the situation is even grimmer, with a spike in infections in 2022 that included nine million known cases and 136,000 reported deaths, mostly among children. The WHO said the rise in cases in Europe has accelerated in recent months, and the upward trend is expected to continue if urgent measures — like vaccination efforts — aren't taken to prevent further spread of this potentially deadly infection. "It's not something that is mild," said Dr. Kate O'Brien, a Canadian pediatric infectious diseases specialist and director of the WHO's department of vaccines and immunization. "And it's not something to be taken lightly." The risk in Canada Canada eliminated measles back in 1998 through widespread vaccination programs. Here, the vaccine is given to children as two doses of a combined shot that also protects against a combination of infections — either measles, mumps and rubella, or measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.  The annual case count remains small — only a dozen confirmed infections were reported country-wide in 2023 — and most cases are now acquired through travel outside the country. But clinicians say outbreaks are still a risk. Canada, like many other countries, hasn't hit the 95 per cent vaccination coverage required to prevent its spread. "Measles is probably the most infectious human virus that is known, and as a result, in order to prevent measles infections, vaccination rates have to be really high in a community," said O'Brien.  "What's happened is, over the course of the pandemic, we've had a historic backsliding in the immunization rates around the world." A mother and her daughter wait at a community health centre to complete their vaccination schedule, in Caracas, in 2022. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Vaccination catch-up crucial In Europe, the level of coverage with two doses of the measles vaccine dropped from 92 per cent in 2019 to 91 per cent by 2022, WHO data shows. Nearly two million infants also missed their measles vaccination in the first two years of the pandemic.  That means children are particularly at risk, clinicians say. Measles spreads easily through the air, leads to high hospitalization rates, and can cause a hacking cough, high fever and a prominent rash. In more serious cases, it leads to pneumonia, brain damage, and death in up to three out of every 1,000 children infected.  Infections can have wide-ranging and sometimes lifelong consequences, including blindness, deafness, or immune system impacts that leave people vulnerable to other infections. In the U.K., where there have been hundreds of cases in recent months, including 127 reported infections in January alone, health officials also point the finger at "falling" vaccination coverage. One in 10 children start school in England without protection. That's similar to Canada. Federal data from 2021 shows that 79 per cent of children had two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine by their seventh birthday, down from 83 per cent in 2019 and 87 per cent in 2017.  That suggests close to two in 10 children hadn't yet had their full set of shots — far from Canada's target of 95 per cent coverage for that age group. "Right now we're underneath the level of immunization that we need to prevent onward transmission in Canada," said pediatric infectious diseases specialist Dr. Charles Hui, who works with CHEO and the University of Ottawa. Another study on population immunity in Ontario, published in 2019, found nearly eight per cent of blood samples had antibody levels below the threshold needed to ward off a measles infection. This suggested that immunity in some age groups may be waning "despite high vaccine coverage." And clinicians warn the situation is getting worse. Read more about the threat of measles from CBC Health's Lauren Pelley and Amina Zafar. Cross-Canada health news from CBC Manulife-Loblaw deal raises questions over ties between insurance companies, big drug retailers | CBC Business B.C. should expand safer-supply program despite drug diversion risks: provincial health officer | CBC British Columbia National dental care plan registration expands to cover seniors 72 and older | CBC Politics Graeme Bayliss, an advocate for medical assistance in dying (MAID) for people with mental illness, says he finds the possibility of an assisted suicide comforting. (Submitted by Graeme Bayliss) Is misunderstanding of mental illness clouding the expansion of MAID in Canada? Canadians suffering from debilitating mental illness cannot yet legally qualify for medical assistance in dying, unlike almost all others with severe illnesses — a restriction some advocates feel is rooted in misunderstanding. Eligibility for MAID was set to expand in March to include people with mental illness. But on Thursday, Health Minister Mark Holland introduced legislation that will delay the expansion of assisted dying to include those suffering solely from mental illness to 2027.  Meanwhile Graeme Bayliss wants the right, at some point, of a doctor-assisted death.  The 34-year-old has lived with depression and obsessive compulsive disorder since his teens and says he is currently managing. But he says he finds the possibility of MAID as a way out comforting, and makes him more willing to try new treatments and medications should he face tough times again. Read more from CBC Health's Amina Zafar. WATCH | Christine Birak reports on MAID for The National Trending studies Early estimates of updated XBB.1.5 monovalent COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness | U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Organ donation after medical assistance in dying, from 2018 to 2022 in Quebec | CMAJ Analysis of coronaviruses carried by bats in Southern China to better understand the coronavirus sphere | Nature Communications Alberta's policy changes on gender-affirming care 1:55 Gender health practitioners talk to CBC News about Alberta's policy changes THE NATIONAL CBC Health's Tashauna Reid spoke to medical experts and patients about gender-affirming care, and the potential impact of Alberta's proposed new law on impacted youth. Limiting access to care, some say, will put kids at risk of self-harm. WATCH THE BIG NUMBER   9.7 million That was the number of global cancer deaths in 2022, the World Health Organization's cancer research agency said on Thursday. There were also 20 million estimated cases, with around one in five people developing cancer in their lifetimes. But that burden isn't felt equally around the world.  For example, in the most-developed countries, such as Canada, approximately one in 12 women get breast cancer in their lifetimes, but only one in 71 women die from it.  In countries that are lower on the human development index, such as Jamaica, Cameroon and Papua New Guinea, one in 27 women get breast cancer — but one in 48 women die from it. Stories we found interesting this week Scientists document first-ever transmitted Alzheimer’s cases, tied to no-longer-used medical procedure | STAT Children at centre of dangerous mpox outbreak ‘accelerating’ in DRC | The Telegraph Heat and wildfire smoke are even more harmful when combined, a study says | New York Times New episode dropped Feb. 1 Dopamine is often associated with helping us feel pleasure, though its role in the body is far more complex. The neurotransmitter is essential for memory and learning, as well as reward-related behaviours — some of which can be problematic. Patricia Di Ciano, a scientist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, breaks down how dopamine functions, and whether dopamine "fasting" actually works. Play on CBC Listen New episode airs Feb. 3 and 4   A growing chorus of women is advocating for breast cancer screening to begin at age 40, while the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care guidelines recommend regular screening should start a decade later. As the task force reviews its guidelines, breast cancer survivors Shannon Coates and Carolyn Holland hope lending their voices can help win the debate. Tune in on CBC Listen Thanks for reading! You can email us any time at secondopinion@cbc.ca with your comments, questions, feedback or ideas. Share this newsletter or subscribe if this was forwarded to you. Follow us View in browser Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 250 Front St. W, Toronto, Ontario M5V 3G5 cbc.radio-canada.ca | radio-canada.ca | cbc.ca

Mob Released Without Bail After Attacking NYPD Cops;One of the lessons that Americans should have learned over the past four years is that President Joe Biden and his administration have allowed a flood of illegal aliens, sex traffickers, and dangerous drugs like fentanyl to pour over the southern border unimpeded.

 

Mob Released Without Bail After Attacking NYPD Cops

(RightWing.org) – One of the lessons that Americans should have learned over the past four years is that President Joe Biden and his administration have allowed a flood of illegal aliens, sex traffickers, and dangerous drugs like fentanyl to pour over the southern border unimpeded. In fact, given the video of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents allegedly cutting concertina wire near Eagle Pass, Texas, and pulling people up the bank of the Rio Grande River, one might say they were even ushered into the country.

The effects of this open border policy are not just hypothetical or hyperbole put forth as conspiracy theories by the political Right, they are very real, and a recent deplorable event was caught on video.

Protectors Unprotected

On the evening of January 27, a camera caught an NYPD officer and a lieutenant (both unnamed) trying to clear a Times Square sidewalk of several young adult alleged asylum-seekers loitering outside one of the shelters set up for them in the city. The two policemen are then seen attempting to subdue one of the group wearing a bright yellow top, and once they brought him to the ground, the melee began.

 

The companions of Mr. Yellow Jacket are soon seen rushing in and attempting to pull one of the officers away as well as throwing punches and kicks at the lawmen. The “cowards” (as NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell labeled them) then proceeded to do what their ilk does so well, they ran away as fast as they could.

However, the NYPD quickly tracked down four individuals (a fifth person was later arrested) that they believed were part of the attack on the patrolman and the lieutenant. After being booked, they were sent to court or their arraignments, and the judge there proceeded to give the officers a verbal slap to the face.

The initial four suspects were all sent back onto the streets without any bail being required, the response of the reportedly George Soros PAC-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. was a generic statement claiming the investigation is still underway, according to the New York Post.

Yorman Reveron was named as one of the alleged attackers and he was out on the streets for the third time after being accused of robbery on November 30, and assault on December 20. In baseball three strikes is an out — apparently, it is not the case in the New York City criminal justice system.

Megyn Kelly went nuclear on Rachel Maddow for this absurd lie about Donald Trump February 1, 2024

 

Megyn Kelly went nuclear on Rachel Maddow for this absurd lie about Donald Trump

February 1, 2024 Politics

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow suffers from extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome.

That possibility of him returning to the White House is causing her to lose it.

And Megyn Kelly went nuclear on Rachel Maddow for this absurd lie about Donald Trump.

Former President Donald Trump was hit with a $83.3 million judgment in a bogus defamation lawsuit by magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly torched the media coverage of Carroll since she launched her frivolous lawsuit against Trump.

Carroll was a frequent guest on Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC over the years.

Kelly pointed out that Maddow was “giddy” whenever she interviewed the magazine columnist.

She played a clip from Maddow’s show to illustrate this point.

“E. Jean Carroll and her lawyer Robbie Kaplan have proven in a court of law that Trump cannot tell lies with impunity,” Maddow ranted in a May 2023 interview with Carroll. “They have done that for the country.”

“The ability to lie without shame and without any sort of tell, without any sort of remorse about it whatsoever, and about even the most important things, have always seemed like a political superpower to him,” Maddow raved. “You’ve turned it into the opposite.”

The former Fox News host said that Maddow’s superpower was to be able to lie “with impunity.”

“No self-awareness!” Kelly said after playing the clip. “‘The ability to lie with impunity without any tell is a superpower.’ Yes, and you have it, madam! You exercised it for four years while he was in the White House.”

Maddow pushed the absurd Russian collusion hoax during Trump’s Presidency.

Kelly compared Maddow’s interview with Carroll to when she interviewed a cadre of women who claimed they were assaulted by Trump – and came forward for the first time after he was a Republican Presidential candidate – while she was at NBC in 2017.

She interviewed three women who accused Trump, including Jessica Leeds who claimed that he groped her in a jet in the 1970s.

Kelly remembered pressing Leeds on how that could have happened in the first-class cabin of a commercial flight without anyone noticing.

“I’m certainly not a ‘believe all women’ person, but I’m not a ‘believe no women’ person either … You don’t have to make it uncomfortable and painful when you’ve got somebody who’s claiming they were sexually assaulted. I get that there needs to be a ginger approach,” Kelly said. “But you don’t have to be completely derelict in your duties as a journalist.”

“When I was interviewing those women while I was at NBC, I wasn’t some huge fan of Trump. I was very open-minded to the fact that he might have done it,” Kelly continued. “But I had to ask those tough questions of the women because it’s our job.”

Rachel Maddow is a Democrat activist masquerading as a journalist.

Karine Jean-Pierre made one confession that left Democrats shaking their heads in disgust January 31, 2024 Politics

 

Karine Jean-Pierre made one confession that left Democrats shaking their heads in disgust

January 31, 2024 Politics

The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Karine Jean-Pierre is in way over her head as the White House press secretary.

She is constantly sticking her foot in her mouth trying to explain Joe Biden’s blunders.

And Karine Jean-Pierre made one confession that left Democrats shaking their heads in disgust.

President Joe Biden is on his heels over the ongoing crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border that he created.

The border has become a top issue for voters while the country is being overwhelmed with record numbers of illegal aliens.

So Biden is trying to talk tough in an election year by promising to shut down the border if Congressional Republicans pass his phony border security bill that codifies nearly two million illegal aliens coming into the country each year, and gives him the money to ship them all across the country with work permits in hand.

He has no intention of shutting down the border let alone doing anything to stop the flood of illegal aliens.

Biden is trying to save his bacon by getting a phony border security bill so his re-election campaign can lie to voters and claim he did something.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a barrage of questions about Biden’s newfound tough rhetoric on the border.

She said that there are “different definitions” of shutting down the border when a reporter noted that Democrats called former President Donald Trump a racist for saying the same thing while he was in the White House.

“Back in the winter of 2018 and the spring of 2019, President Trump vowed to shut down the border with Mexico using almost the identical language that the president used on Friday. Many, many, if not most, if not practically all Democrats called that xenophobic and even racist. Why shouldn’t people make the same conclusion about this President’s threat to shut down the entire border with Mexico?” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre.

“We believe the new enforcement tools that currently don’t exist that we believe will be part of this bipartisan agreement will be fair. We believe . . . it’ll be tough, but it will be fair,” Jean-Pierre replied.

She was grilled about the stunning political shift by Biden to adopt the language of Trump on the border.

“Why isn’t that the same thing that Trump did?” a reporter wondered.

“There are different definitions, right, of what that looks like, of what actually shutting down the border looks like, right? So, we’re going to let them work through it. We don’t know what that looks like exactly. What we are asking for, what the President wants to see, is that we deal with the challenges at the border, that we have an opportunity to deal with what’s going on, the security, and make sure that we have the funding and the resources to deal with what we’re seeing at the border,” Jean-Pierre stammered. “There are different definitions to what that looks like.”

Shutting down the border is a cut-and-dry situation.

Karine Jean-Pierre is floundering trying to explain Joe Biden’s new-found tough border security rhetoric after spending years attacking Trump for saying the same thing.